Monday, November 24th, 2008
I don’t have many pictures for this day because, surprise, I was sick, and we didn’t have anything planned for the day. It was basically pick up our rental car and start our roadtrip around North Island. There was a lot planned for the next few days, and I was still trying to recover in time for all the fun things we were going to do.
I don’t remember what we did for breakfast this morning, as I don’t think I had a freebie hotel breakfast booked for this day. We packed our things and checked out, which was an easy process. It was grey, drizzly, and even at times a little rainy, but the weather didn’t affect our travel much.
Either this morning or the afternoon from the day before, we dropped by the local New Zealand Automobile Association office to pick up maps. Aside from the i-Sites located everywhere in New Zealand, the NZAA is another good resource for New Zealand travel. AAA is buddy-buddy with NZAA, so if you’re member of AAA, you can get free maps at NZAA. We brought a GPS navigation system with us that had an open source New Zealand I had downloaded (might have been from here, can’t remember) installed. Handy for driving directions and not getting completely lost, but road maps are better for browsing areas, so we picked up maps for every place we were going to.
We walked over a few blocks to the Hertz in the area. It’s conveniently close to the hotels, and we packed light, so the walk was easy even with me being sick. At the Hertz, we were given our magnificent ride that would take us everywhere in New Zealand: a silver Toyota Corolla. It’s pretty much just like the American Toyota Corolla, except the driver’s seat is on the right side since they drive on the left in New Zealand. All the pedals are positioned identically to US cars, but Kelvin says he thinks the hand switches were flipped cuz he kept turning on the wipers instead of signaling. The Hertz also has their own complimentary set of guides and maps available for customers.
Kelvin’s first New Zealand drive
Because I was sick (and I hate driving and Kelvin is nice), Kelvin did most of the driving in New Zealand. Leaving the Hertz was pretty freaky; Kelvin’s first time driving was through downtown until we got to the freeway. He seemed to handle it no problem, but I know the left-hand driving made him anxious. He said the feeling of cars whizzing past him on the right side freaked him out. Other than that, most of the driving in New Zealand seems easy. (I say “seems” because the most I drove was one mile down a straight road.) New Zealand isn’t densely populated like the Bay Area, so there aren’t many cars on the road. A lot of the roads we took through country were one lane in each direction, and occasionally a middle lane would pop up for the sole purpose of passing. Speed limit seems fast considering the number of lanes, but most of the time if you drove off the road, you’d end up in a ditch or grassy fields. There are roundabouts all over the place, and their right-of-way rules are a bit different than ours. In New Zealand, the general right-of-way rule is “give way to the the right”, which means you “give way”, their term for “yield”, to people turning right (or going straight from the right) into the lane you want to left-turn in to. This is the general rule for roundabouts, so every intersection acts like a roundabout. The parts of the country we went to had windy roads from being in between hilly land, but they were a fun windy and not a scary windy (with the exception of one area I’ll talk about in a later post).
Kelvin’s getting the hang of it now
Today we were going from Auckland to Rotorua, an area known for their underground caves. I was the navigator for most of the trip, but I wasn’t used to the GPS yet at the point. We stopped at some random town (I believe it was Huntly) along Highway 1 to have lunch at the KFC there. While it’s cool they have KFC in New Zealand, their KFC doesn’t quite live up to the American version (kinda bland, IIRC). I have the same problem with Taiwan KFCs.
The KFC in Huntly
Instead of coleslaw and biscuit, you get fries and dinner roll.
I just looked at the New Zealand KFC website, and I’m somewhat disturbed with the these KFC Rollers they’re promoting at the moment. Popcorn chicken with nacho cheese (and salsa) in a friggin’ wrap. OR you can have popcorn chicken, bacon, BBQ sauce, AND cheese in a friggin’ wrap. Ugh, and I thought the KFC bowls in the US were bad.
After lunch, we headed straight to Otorohanga, the only major town near the bed & breakfast we were staying at. We packed lightly, and we once again needed to do laundry. We stopped by a Woolworths, a major grocery store chain in New Zealand, to buy more beverages, snacks, and toiletries, as the hotel shampoos weren’t doing Kelvin’s hair any favors. One of the grocery clerks gave us directions to the nearest laundromat, which was located in some sort of camper park down the road. We got a little lost in the park; we first found the laundry area for tenants, not the one open to the public.
It’s like home!
While our clothes were washing, we explored the main road of Otorohanga called Maniapoto Street. All the important shops are on this street, including restaurants, pharmacies, banks, and the Woolworths we went to earlier. The local i-Site is also located here, so we dropped by so Kelvin could use the restroom (located by some train stop) and refill our water. Another awesome thing about New Zealand is that the water from the tap is as clean as bottled water. All the locals always recommend getting water from the faucet, which is incredible to me considering how tap water in San Jose is nasty and other countries you can’t drink the tap without getting sick. The water is indeed clean, as are most of the public bathrooms we went. The only gross restrooms we encountered were port-o-potty sort of bathrooms… and this public bathroom in Otorohanga, according to Kelvin. The outside is cute, at least.
The i-Site in Otorohanga
We went back to the laundromat to dry our clothes, and we waited for the clothes to finish in the car, either playing DS games or napping. Once the load was done, we went back to the main road for an early dinner. Dining options are very limited in the area; one of the few places to eat that was recommended by the bed & breakfast owner was The Thirsty Weta. I ordered a Margherita pizza, while Kelvin had some sort of creamy pasta thing with bacon, which I forgot to take a picture of. I was really disappointed with my pizza; it was a regular cheese pizza with tomatoes on it. Kelvin seemed to enjoy his pasta more than I enjoyed my pizza. The restaurant is good for people watching, if anybody was around. I spent most of my dinner watching a group of women sitting outside, drinking beer and one of them smoking next to their baby in a stroller. Classy.
My only picture of the food. Unfortunately Kelvin is in half-blink.
During dinner, Kelvin dropped by the pharmacy across the street to pick up some more medicine and an umbrella, as it had been raining lightly since we left Auckland. After dinner, we headed straight to Kamahi Cottage (“New Zealand’s only 5-star farmstay”), our home for the next to night. As the owner, Liz, had told me ahead of time, she wasn’t there to greet us because of a school function, but she left a note (and some brownies!) so we’d know everything was all set inside. The cottage is really private (the owners live in a separate house) and cute. The bedroom is located upstairs in a loft area, while the downstairs area has the living room, a dining area and kitchenette, and the bathroom. There’s plenty of reading material and DVDs laying around, definitely feels like a home away from home.
Our day was done at this point, as I had a fever again, and there’s not much to do at night in the area. We had an exciting day the next day, so I really needed to rest. My guess would be I watched TV at some point, but Kelvin says I most likely immediately passed out. All he remembers from that night is me sleeping and him downstairs reading bad joke books and trivia books.
Previously, Honeymoon Day 6 – Taking a sick day in Auckland
Next, Honeymoon Day 8 – Looking like dorks in a New Zealand brochure (bunnies & black water rafting)
New thing I learned today: A weta is a giant nocturnal insect endemic to New Zealand. They look like large crickets with spiny legs.
Ugh, those things look ugly.
